Ultrasonic diagnosis support system, ultrasonic imaging apparatus, and ultrasonic diagnosis support method

Abstract

The controller causes a display to display body marks representing the body parts of a subject to be imaged. Furthermore, the controller causes the display to display subjective symptom marks corresponding to the subjective symptoms of a subject to be examined in a location within a body mark that has been designated by an examiner. The examiner conducts ultrasonic imaging by applying an ultrasonic probe to a subject to be examined while checking the location of the subjective symptom marks. The controller links a tomographic image obtained from the imaging to the subjective symptoms and causes a storage to store the same. In the medical examination, the controller causes the display to display the tomographic image and further causes the display to display the subjective symptom marks representing the subjective symptoms linked to the tomographic image.

Description

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0001]1. Field of the Invention[0002]The present invention relates to an ultrasonic diagnosis support system, an ultrasonic imaging apparatus, and an ultrasonic diagnosis support method for supporting diagnosis using ultrasonic images.[0003]2. Description of the Related Art[0004]The ultrasonic imaging apparatus comprises an ultrasonic probe comprising a plurality of ultrasonic transducers. The ultrasonic imaging apparatus transmits ultrasonic waves to a body to be examined through the ultrasonic probe and receives reflected waves from the body to be examined through the ultrasonic probe to generate ultrasonic image data (such as tomographic image data of a subject to be imaged) based on the reflected waves.[0005]The ultrasonic images obtained by the ultrasonic imaging apparatus are used for medical examinations conducted by a medical examiner such as a doctor. For example, an ultrasonic imaging apparatus can be used for checking mammary glands (e.g., Japan...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

The present invention is an ultrasonic diagnosis support system, ultrasonic imaging apparatus, and ultrasonic diagnosis support method designed to help medical examiners easily and accurately image any body part of a subject being examined without missing anything. The system can display medical questionnaire information obtained from the subject and the location information related to it, as well as visually check the subject's subjective symptoms using the body mark representing the body part to be subjected to ultrasonic imaging. This allows for a more comprehensive and accurate examination based on the medical information obtained from the subject.

Problems solved by technology

Therefore, the workload of the examiner increases and there is a risk that details regarding subjective symptoms or declared areas are mistaken, or that the examiner forgets to examine areas requiring an examination.

Furthermore, if the examiner and the medical examiner (doctor) are not the same subject, the relationship between the subjective symptoms declared by the subject to be examined and the image obtained by the examiner may be unclear to the medical examiner.

Thus, there is a risk that the image may be underutilized, when a medical examiner examines a subject to be examined.

In this case, because an image representing the area with the subjective symptom does not exist, the medical examiner is not able to examine the area declared to have subjective symptoms through an image.

Even if the examiner and the medical examiner are the same subject, the same problems as above have occurred when the medical examiner examines a subject to be examined after a few days.

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